


Kisses That Taste Like Salt

by shallow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:25:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallow/pseuds/shallow
Summary: Your eyes stung.Steve had changed.It broke your heart.It terrified you.Did you really know this man, or were you merely infatuated with your memories of him?Despite, the conflict consuming your entire being. You wanted Steve to be here. You wanted to love him.In that moment, your heart cracked a little more...as you realised...you wanted him to love you back.-Steve Rogers/Reader (Set between Captain America: Civil war and Avengers: Infinity War)





	Kisses That Taste Like Salt

_"All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”_

_― Tahereh Mafi_

* * *

 

Isolation. In the world that you had chosen, isolation was safety. It was protection. So, you cut yourself off from the world with a knife forged from desolated forests and lifeless roads. Roads that had led to places that were once animated by family values and the carelessness of childhood, where now only the trees spoke in hushed murmurs and the foxes screamed. Loneliness was something you accepted. For you, being lonely was a side effect of being alive, just like breathing.

Your hiding place…your home, was a cottage that stood alone in an overgrown forest. The previous occupants had been evicted in the 1980s and it was left to rot with all their belongings. It was a time capsule. Bordered by mottled walls and checkered floors. Filled with old technology and blindingly bright furniture. When you rummaged further uncovering old photos and sewn up toys, you suddenly felt like you were inserting yourself into someone else’s life, like you were a ghost watching this family’s life go by and it filled you with a longing, you would never know these people but you wanted to. You wanted to know what the young daughter, who had an infectious bubbly smile and a habit of gripping her coat buttons in photos, had gone on to do in her life. How did she do in high school? Did she go to college? Had you met her or seen her all grown up before, at a coffee shop or a train station, perhaps? You wanted to know if the mother’s eyes still clouded with a gentle look of adoration and affection when she looked towards her husband and you wanted to know if he still looked at her with the deepest devotion and a fiery passion.

You felt a strange sense of perversion as you thought all this, you felt as if you were an intruder. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be looking at this. You were invading this family’s most intimate secrets. It felt wrong.

The worse part was...it made you want something. It made you want something you could never have, it made you want to not be lonely. It made you want to be with someone. It made you want to share a different life with that someone. A life, where you both sat at the kitchen table in silence drinking your coffee, while exchanging small smiles and lingering touches. A life, where you kissed good morning and good night and cooked each other meals and read books together in each other’s company.

As wonderful as that daydream was, it was a fleeting one. You could never have something like that. Life would never be that simple for you. Not now. Before, S.H.I.E.L.D was compromised, maybe that life wouldn’t have slipped through your fingers so easily. You had worked closely with the Avengers as a on duty nurse for S.H.I.E.L.D, often attending missions with them to keep civilian casualty as low as possible. Your life was a lot simpler. Then, S.H.I.E.L.D was compromised and later labelled a terrorist organisation so you ran back to this little place, hiding and hoping that things would get better. It was risky to even contact the Avengers and yet you did what you could to help them because it grounded you.

Subsequently, the Avengers split and you had never felt lonelier. You left your old life at the door and you decided a civilian life was probably the best thing to pursue until they needed you again, if they ever did. So, you faked records and went through contacts until you could get yourself a job at a hospital in a small town about fifteen miles away. But you mourned for the life you had before, the Avengers had been a group of people who wanted to make the world better, but they had also given you a home and purpose when you had never had one before, they made your life better. When you spent time with those people, those extraordinary people you felt at home, you all cared about each other and you felt like yourselves around each other, you could be honest with them.

In this new life, you had built on lies, you didn’t feel like you could connect with anyone. You even tried to date and you took Natasha’s advice about making things up but not even pretending could perk your interests in the people you deemed bland and it certainly couldn’t stop you from missing the people you had left behind.

This led to you calling Natasha a couple of weeks after you got your new job. The Avengers had been split for two months by then. You told her about the worst dating experiences and the strangest injuries you had saw in the hospital. You missed her, when you talked to her it was like you had never left at all. Your heart chased after the hope that she would ask you to come along with her, Steve and Sam but you knew she never would and you were tired of living like a criminal, so you swept it away from your mind. You asked her to come around if she ever found herself in your area, she laughed and said she would but you both knew it was unlikely. Then the conversation dwindled a little and your mind was screaming at you to ask that one simple question that was haunting your mind since the conversation had begun, it made you anxious but you dreaded this conversation ending, you dreaded returning to your solitary life. So, you sighed and asked quietly,

“How’s…Steve?”

Natasha seemed to pause and you took a bated breath.

"He’s alright, seen better. I think he’s trying to test out a beard, it’s making him look his age. He’s here right now, wanna talk to him?” You could hear the mischievous smile in her teasing tone.

You pursed your lips, you didn’t know if you wanted to talk to him. What would you say? You were anxious that he might feel betrayed because you took no stance during the whole Accords situation and you hadn’t talked to him since the split. You just didn’t know what to do, the proposal was so sudden and you didn’t want to fight your friends but you certainly didn’t want them to be criminals. You felt so guilty, you felt like your lack of action had been a part of the reason that the captain and his allies were condemned…

“Hi…(Name). How you been?” It seemed Natasha wasn’t going to give you a choice in the matter…

“Hi…Steve…Um…I’m alright it’s a bit lonely out here but it’s nice I suppose…” You tugged your lip between your teeth “How are you, Steve?”

When you heard his deep chuckle reverberate through the receiver you almost felt it rumble through you filling you with a warmth that settled and fluttered in your stomach.

He sighed “Honestly…I’m a little tired, didn’t know being on the run would be this hard.” You both laughed a little before he continued "I’m really glad you’re alright, hun.”

"Yeah, it’s not all bad, pretty cosy and no noisy neighbours is a bonus. You know I’ve owned this place for ages but I only just got around to really making it my own.” Your heart started walking a little faster than your mind when you began to ramble, remembering those times you spent just hanging out with the Avengers after missions, drinking or eating or whatever it was Tony’s pretty mind conjured up to alleviate your boredom “You know if you ever need a place to lay low, I’ve got you covered…I mean I know you probably won’t need it but there’s a reason I brought it ages ago, so yeah…the offers there.”

“Always prepared for some kind of disastrous event, aren’t you?” Your face heated at his teasing as he chuckled once again and just as you were about to splutter out a defence for yourself, his voice lowered as he gently replied, 

“I appreciate it, thank you (Name).”

His delicate tone made your mind slow and you stayed silent for a while, as the words sunk in. It was only then that you realised how tired he sounded. It was as if you could hear the slump in his shoulders, you could imagine him…hunched over with a forearm resting on his knees, the dark bags slowly filling up beneath his eyes and his eyes glossy as he tried to keep his sleepiness at bay by blinking.

“Your welcome. You sound tired, it’s probably late over there, I should let you go. Stay safe please, Steve.”

You didn’t want him to go, you didn’t want to listen to the call go silent. You didn’t want to return to your bleary kitchen, you wanted to stay with Steve, wherever he was you wanted to be there.

“You too, hun. Good bye (Name).”

“Bye Steve.”

The words left your mouth with a bittersweet taste. The electronic hum of the receiver cut through the stillness of your house. You stood there, your thoughts blurring into one feeling: regret.


End file.
